Today I received a call from a realtor for whom I do the majority of my staging work. He had a property that was on the market and had shown it to some potential buyers- relo's from Wisconsin who were transferring to Chicago.
The main problem with this house is that it should never have been put on the market in it's current condition. The residents had moved out leaving half of their belongings behind - including all of the children's toys and the shampoo in the shower. Furniture had been disassembled but not removed, and wall art had been taken down but the hardware/holes in the wall had been left behind.
After my initial shock at the fact that this house was even on the market, we made a plan of action before the owner arrived. Below is the plan we presented to him:
1) Clean it up and move it out - Pack up all of your belongings and get them out of the way. Take all of the abandoned toys and either donate them or have a big garage sale and use the money to get your house ready for market
2) Paint - Patch all of the walls and paint the whole house with a neutral color palette.
3) Windows - remove all of the paper shades and get the windows cleaned for a better view from the inside/out!
4) Finish construction - The basement was in a state of being half-done - A sauna/steam room had been constructed and all of the tile was ready to be installed but it had not been completed. It's hard for buyers to see past the WORK of it all, and the last thing they want to do on a $599,000 house is more work!
5) Landscape - Although the landscaping was completed, it had not been weeded or manicured since installation. We needed a full facelift on the outside of this house to keep buyers from being turned off before they even walked in.
Bottom line- The home owner wants top dollar for his home in a buyers market and with a product that is ina state of disrepair. He could either drop his price ALOT to make the buyer feel a little work/repair was worth it, or spend 10-15K to fix it up and keep his price where it was at - He chose the latter, and we've got a plan of action in place already. I'm looking forward to the results of our extreme makeover!
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